Francesca and Sharkey

A Guest Photographed Birds at the Farm

Lily Mei, my long-time housekeeper, comes to work for me on weekends. Lily has a large family and she enjoys having them visit the farm. This past Sunday, her cousin Chang Sheng Li, an avid photographer with a fondness for birds, arrived with his camera equipment, including his Canon EOS-1D X camera and a super powerful and long 500mm F4 Prime lens. His images are stunningly impressive - please enjoy!

1 This beautiful bird is a male American goldfinch. Adult males in spring and early summer are bright yellow with a black forehead and black wings with white markings.

2 Like many bird species, adult females are not as brightly colored. In winter, both male and female goldfinch are quite drab in order to blend in with the barren landscape.

3 A female goldfinch shares a thistle feeder with a female house finch.

4 The male house finch has a rosy red head, face, and upper breast and a streaky brown back, belly, and tail.

5 Female house finches have no red markings. Instead, they are grayish-brown with thick blurry streaks.

6 The blue jay is a common, large songbird, known for their intelligence and complex social systems with tight family bonds. Blue jays make a large variety of calls that carry long distances.

7 Red-bellied Woodpeckers are medium-sized woodpeckers common in Eastern forests.

8 Red-bellied woodpeckers are known for their striking black and white barred backs and their gleaming red caps.

9 This bird is an insect eater, but is often seen at the feeders partaking in an easy meal.

10 Red-bellied woodpeckers are known to use cracks in trees and fence posts to store food for later consumption.

11 Another great shot

12 This is a female red-winged blackbird.

13 With its subdued, streaky brown spring breeding plumage, it looks like a rather large sparrow.

14 The males are well-known for their glossy-black feathers and bright red and yellow shoulder patches.

15 This little gray bird is a tufted titmouse and a frequent visitor to my feeders. You can't see it in this photo, but above those large black eyes is a tufted head.

16 This stunning red bird is, of course, a male cardinal. Brown female cardinals also have a sharp crest and warm red accents.

17 Cardinals do not migrate and unlike many birds, their plumage remains vibrant all winter long.

18 This shot is of a fledgling great horned owl, taken early in the morning. The great horned owl is one of the most widespread and common owls in North America.

19 This pair of wood ducks was spotted perched in a tree. The males are covered with iridescent brown and green feathers with ornate feathers on nearly every feather. The females sport a white pattern around the eyes.

20 This beautiful bird is a yellow-rumped warbler. After molting in the spring the male feathers are a mix of bright yellow, charcoal gray, black, and white.

21 This is a hairy woodpecker, a powerful bird that forages on branches and trunks of trees.